You may already have a process in your organisation that you know is taking too much time.
Your team is copying information from one system into another. Perhaps someone spends part of every week sending reminders, updating records or moving information between spreadsheets.
A process that used to work perfectly well now feels unnecessarily complicated. It gets you thinking. Surely we can automate this.
You probably can.
But before you do, there is one question I would encourage you to ask.
What exactly are you fixing?
It is a simple question.
Yet, it can save you from investing time and money in automating a problem that was never properly understood.
You may be looking at the task, not the system
Let us say someone on your team spends three hours every week transferring information between two systems.
It is easy to see those three hours as the problem. So you look for a way to automate the transfer.
- What if the real problem is somewhere else?
- What if the same information is being collected twice?
- What if one of those systems is no longer necessary?
- What if your team created this workaround years ago because the organisation operated differently then?
- Or what if the process itself has simply grown around the organisation rather than with it?
In each case, automation could make the existing process faster. But you would still have the same underlying process.
You would simply have automated it.
What would happen if you understood the process first?
Before deciding what to automate, take a step back. Watch how the work actually happens.
- Where does the process begin?
- Who becomes involved?
- Where do people have to stop and wait?
- Where are they copying, checking, chasing or re-entering information?
- Where have they created workarounds just to keep things moving?
Ask one more critical question.
Does this process still make sense for the organisation you are today?
That question can change everything.
- You may discover that the task should be automated.
- You may discover that the task should be automated.
- You may discover that two systems should be connected.
- Or you may discover that part of the process no longer needs to exist at all.
This is a much better place from which to make a technology decision.
Your goal is not to automate more
This is worth remembering. You do not need more automation simply because automation is available. You need systems that make it easier for your team to do the work that matters.
That means less unnecessary administration.Less duplication, chasing, and less uncertainty about what happens next.
It means information reaching the right person at the right time. Your team spends less energy managing the process and more energy doing the work.
As your organisation grows, it means your systems can grow with you rather than becoming another thing you have to manage.
That is the value of automation, not automation itself.
Start with the question
So before you choose a platform, connect two systems or build a workflow, take a moment to understand the thing you are trying to improve.
Ask yourself these questions.
- What is slowing you down?
- Why does the process work this way?
- What could be removed before it is automated?
- What should happen automatically?
- What still needs human judgement?
You may find that the answer is simpler than you expected. You may also discover that the problem is deeper than the task you first noticed. Either way, you will be making the decision from a much stronger position.
This is why you should begin with understanding before execution. Your organisation does not need technology for technology’s sake. It needs systems that make growth easier.
Sometimes, the smartest thing you can automate is not the first problem you notice. It is the problem you understand properly.
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